Skip to main content
State Sen. Mark Hass (D-Beaverton) appeared on the way to victory over two Democratic rivals for his party's nomination for secretary of state Tuesday night.
Throughout the evening, Hass held a small but steady lead of about 2 to 3 percentage points over state Sen. Shemia Fagan (D-Portland). At 11 pm, with 42 percent of the statewide vote counted, Hass had 37.24 percent of the vote; Fagan, 34.83; and Jamie McLeod-Skinner, a lawyer and natural resources consultant from Terrebone, 27.17 percent.
His lead is even larger in liberal Multnomah County, and few ballots remain to be counted statewide, giving Fagan little room to make up the deficit.
Hass, 63, the longtime chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, ran on a substantial legislative record built over nearly two decades and gained an advantage by getting his television ads up well before his opponents.
Fagan, 38, who is in the middle of her first term in the Senate after two terms in the House, entered the race late at the end of February. Although her opponents had been running since the end of last summer, Fagan easily outpaced them in fundraising. As of Tuesday night, Fagan had raised $772,000, more than three-quarters of it from public employee unions. Hass raised $466,000, drawing on support from the business community, while McLeod-Skinner, 52, who swore off corporate money and didn't appeal to unions, raised $313,000.
Fagan's fundraising became a flashpoint, when a longtime ally, state Rep. Alissa Keny-Guyer (D-Portland), wrote an email criticizing her for an excessive dependence on union money and for a deceptive website Fagan's union supporters bankrolled. In the end, Fagan and McLeod-Skinner appear to have split the progressive vote, leaving Hass to squeak through to victory.
If Hass' lead holds up through the final tally, he will face state Sen. Kim Thatcher (R-Keizer) in the November general election. She faced no serious opposition in the Republican primary.